


Prelude To A Storm

by leiascully



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Community: dogdaysofsummer, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-10
Updated: 2006-07-10
Packaged: 2017-10-03 07:05:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Moony, we will be electrocuted if we stay under this tree all afternoon."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prelude To A Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Marauders  
> A/N: The prompt was a line from Philip Larkin.  
> Disclaimer: _Harry Potter_ and all related characters are the property of JK Rowling and Scholastic. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

Remus' mother shook out the white sheets with a snap and tucked one hem under her chin so that she could fold them. The sheets were very white against her yellow dress, and the grass was very green under the darkening sky. In the east, the sky was vivid blue with the occasional pale scud of cumulus brilliant as the clean sheets, but in the west the clouds hung heavy, rounded and dark as grapes. Sirius grinned and arched his back in a stretch, settling his head on Remus' knee. He looked up through the lattice of broad green leaves, watching the patterns change on the bark as the sharp stormlight pierced the canopy. The tree was immense and lonely on the flank of the hill, and there was a faintly shiny spot on the bark where Remus' shoulder blades had worn it smooth over the long years.

"My mother never did the laundry in her life," he said, nudging Remus' book.

"Mmm," said Remus, absorbed in reading, and familiar to the point of indifference with Sirius' powers of distraction.

"That's what house elves are for." Sirius plucked a blade of grass and nibbled on the soft end. He thought about his mother and how she had hated storms, rigidly unhappy in the close-shuttered rooms where the air was still out of long habit of obedience but charged with the energy of the storm despite her efforts. "Moony, we will be electrocuted if we stay under this tree all afternoon."

"Mmm," said Remus.

Sirius sat up. He could feel the electricity in the air, crackling crisp as the sheets, which Remus' mother was putting into the laundry basket now, neat white rectangles against the wicker. She lifted the basket to her hip and turned to wave up the hill. Sirius waved back and she smiled in the distance and went into the house, looking once at the sky.

The Potters had gone on holiday and he had come to the Lupins'. He liked it among the green fields after the tomb of the Black mansion, invisible among the thronging houses of London. And the Lupins did not know his family, and looked at him with none of the awkward sympathy of the Potters, who loved him but did not know what to say. Remus' mother simply cossetted him, quiet but glad of his friendship with Remus, and fed him on fresh brown bread and eggs from the farmers next door. The wide countryside was all fields for romping boys and Remus' mother had strong quiet ideas on the virtues of clean air and good English sunshine where it concerned growing boys, so she had sent them out to do as they would, no matter that they were almost grown. Sirius felt for the first time as if he had a real mother; his own mother had been cool and distant, and Mrs. Potter was more of a friendly aunt.

"We should take the bike out," he said experimentally to Remus, relishing the idea of gunning the motorbike through the first fat drops of rain and coming home on the wild winds soaked to the skin. Remus, who hated the bike, would cling to him for purchase and warmth, and the sting of the rain would be a penance and a release for the everyday guilt that Sirius had carried since he had left the noble and ancient house of Black.

"Mmm," said Remus, and turned a page.

"You're right," said Sirius, and frowned. "There will probably will be hail, and that will be hell on the paint. Shall we strip instead, and frolic as the youths of old? The ones you're always reading about?"

"Mmm," said Remus, and shifted his back against the tree a bit.

"Moony, your book will get wet," said Sirius, and Remus looked up at last.

"Is it going to rain?" he asked, looking puzzled, and there was a sudden boom of thunder. Sirius grabbed Remus' hand and dragged him whooping down the hill as the chilly rain began to fall, into the warm kitchen where there was tea waiting.


End file.
